I Samuel 16: 1–13; Psalm
23; Ephesians
5: 8–14; John
9: 1–41
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 30, 2014.
THE DISCIPLES’ "SEMINARY EDUCATION”
A homily by Fr. Gene Tucker, given at Trinity Church, Mt. Vernon, Illinois on Sunday, March 30, 2014.
THE DISCIPLES’ "SEMINARY EDUCATION”
(Homily text: John 9: 1–41)
Jesus’
twelve original disciples had a lot to learn during the three years they spent
with Him in His earthly ministry. These
raw recruits required a lot of shaping, disciplining and educating in order to
be ready to lead the newly-born Church after the Lord ascended into heaven
after His resurrection.
The healing
of the man born blind must have been one of those memorable events in which the
disciples’ eyes were opened to see what God was doing in the person of Jesus
Christ. We are probably safe in saying
that the blind man wasn’t the only one whose eyes needed opening…. the
disciples’ eyes also needed that treatment, and, as we read in the last part of
our gospel passage this morning, so did the eyes of the Pharisees.
We could
liken the disciples’ training program to a seminary education, which is meant
not only to educate, but to shape and form the future leaders of the
Church. (It is interesting that the
disciples’ education process took about three years, which is the length of a
contemporary seminary course of study at most seminaries.)
So, let’s take a closer look at the healing of the blind man, and draw some conclusions about the things the disciples most likely learned as they watched the Lord at work.
A person’s life situation and the presence of sin: Perhaps one of the most important lessons they took away from this event is that a person’s life situation isn’t directly dependent on sin, or a lack of sin. Notice that the event begins when the disciples ask the Lord, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
The disciples are simply echoing the beliefs of the Jewish society of their day, a belief that if someone was beset by disease or some other condition, it was due to the presence of sin in some way or another. Conversely, the belief also was that if a person was wealthy or was blessed with good health, that must be because they were living a righteous and holy life, following the commandments of God faithfully.
Jesus debunks this idea entirely, answering that sin was not the cause of the man’s condition, but rather, his condition is cause for the works and power of God to be seen clearly. Here we might pause for a moment and recall Nicodemus’ comment to the Lord (which we heard two weeks ago)….Nicodemus opened his conversation with Jesus by saying, “Rabbi, we know that you are a man come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him.” (John 3: 2)
Precisely, Nicodemus.
The miracles that Jesus was doing were meant to point to His being one with the Father. Put another way, we could say that Jesus was exercising the powers that only God has in being able to conquer disease, death, and the powers of nature because He and the Father are one (see John 10: 30).
Faith will be tested: Notice that Jesus creates a mud pack of sorts by spitting on the ground and creating a mixture with the soil. Then, He told the blind man to go to the pool of Siloam and wash off the mixture.
Wouldn’t it have been just as possible, and easier for the blind man, to have touched his eyes and healed them on the spot? After all, the man had to make his way, still unable to see, to the pool of Siloam in order to wash off the mud pack Jesus had applied.
But it seems as though there may have been a test of faith involved in Jesus’ instructions to the man. “Go wash in the pool of Siloam.”
If there was a test involved, the blind man passed, making his way to the pool to wash.
Having 20 – 20 vision: Notice how much of today’s text is devoted to the reaction of the Jews to this miracle. They spend a lot of time cross-examining the man, trying to determine if he is really the one who was healed, and if he was truly born blind. They also try to ferret out the exact means Jesus used to cure the man. We should not be surprised to read that it was the Pharisees who were engaging in this scrutiny. We also shouldn’t be surprised that the Pharisees focused on the fact that Jesus did this healing on the Sabbath day.
The Pharisees’ problem was that they could see certain aspects of a situation, but they seemed to be unable to see all of a situation.
How blind
can a group of human beings be, to miss the blessing of a miraculous healing
just because it took place on the holy day of the week?
Having made these three observations about the healing of the blind man, let’s draw some lessons for ourselves from this incident.
First of
all, we need to be careful not to connect a person’s life circumstances to
their spiritual condition. It is a
situation in which “this equals that” does not apply necessarily. Illness does not equate to the presence of sin,
any more than health and wellbeing (financial or otherwise) equates to a close
walk with God.
The danger
in believing that “if we do so-and-so, then God will bless us accordingly”
makes our walk of faith into a matter of our own creation. Put another way, we can fall into the trap of
believing that we ourselves can improve our own situation and can earn favor
with God by what we do. Believing
behaving this way can make faith a matter of a contract, making faith a bargain
with God.
But even in
a situation where a person has made poor choices that have led to destructive
results, God’s power to redeem and to reclaim remains.
Oftentimes,
when a person is redeemed and reclaimed by God from a destructive situation
such as an addiction of some sort, God’s power is magnified by the depths of
bondage that the addiction has created.
God’s power is seen more clearly in cases where human weakness is unable
to effect a change.
The second
thing we should notice has to do with testing.
Many times in Jesus’ earthly ministry, He tests the faith of the person
who is in need. Often, He will say, “Go
your way, your faith has made you well.”
Wrapped up
in the mystery of how God works is the role that the testing of our faith plays
in making God’s power available.
Somehow, God wants us to play our part, as we demonstrate that we trust
in God’s power, that we trust in God’s ways of doing things to answer our
requests.
So we are
not simply bystanders in the process of seeing God at work. Like the man born blind, we are asked to go
and do what is required to demonstrate that we believe that God’s power will be
available to us in ways that God alone will determine.
Finally, we
need to have our own eyesight honed by God so that we can see the entirety of a
situation clearly. The warning here is
that we are not to be like the ancient Pharisees, who took the legalities of
the law seriously, but who lost sight of the importance of human beings’ needs. Jesus will summarize the relationship between
the law and human beings by saying, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for
the Sabbath.” (Mark 2: 27)
If we lapse
into a legalistic mode of thinking, we will all be condemned, for none of us is
blameless when it comes to keeping all of God’s commandments perfectly. Applied to the situations that will come our
way with regard to those whose life circumstances are less-than-perfect, we
will encounter many situations where God’s will doesn’t seem to be
present. We are to err on the side of
love, just as Jesus did, recognizing that God’s love is able to penetrate any
and every situation that will arise.
God’s love seeks people out, being able to accept people for who they
are and where they are when God finds them.
God’s love never leaves people where they are found, however, and so,
like the man born blind, everyone who comes into God’s loving embrace will find
a new life ahead of them.
And that,
dear friends, is great and good news indeed!
AMEN.
